Adaptation of yoga in the west

Some of the appeal for Asian religions centered on the fact that they were people centered, designed to provide physical, mental, and spiritual advantages. It was unlike Christianity which called for absolute obedience to a higher power who controlled everything. However, due to certain misconceptions present in the West and the dominance of the Christian religion in those areas, the adaptation and spread of practices like yoga, was watered down to suit Western expectations which value scientific and observable evidence of success. The spread of yoga to the West turned this religious tradition from a philosophical system that emphasizes spiritual enlightenment into an exercise that uses physical postures to achieve body fitness and mental relaxation. The Foundation of Yoga The term ‘yoga’ in India has been used for centuries to refer to a variety of closely-related religious practices that may or may not have the same background.

Rather than maintain this individual spiritual goal made possible through classical yoga practices, yoga enthusiasts in the West got caught up in the attractions offered by professional careers in the field. It led to increasing teacher-training programs powered by dubious accreditation systems which produced an excess of teachers with questionable credentials (Schutz 40). Some scholars even believe that ‘postural yoga’ which is the most common in the West today, began in India during early twentieth century and was taken to the West by increasingly sought yoga teachers or ‘Hindu lecturers’. It gained the greatest appeal in the West because science could prove its results. According to Philip Deslippe, the Punjabi Sikh yoga teachers who popularized yoga in the twentieth century drew from life experience and impressive bodies of knowledge to construct the type of yoga they presented to the public (119).

The practice has become so ingrained that even some health insurance and managed care plans pay for yoga classes. Andrea Jain observes that when people today think of yoga today, they “envision spandex-clad, perspiring, toned bodies brought together in a room filled with yoga mat and engaged in a fitness ritual set apart from day-to-day life,” and as a result, there are people who believe that modern yogis are practicing it wrong (428). The form of yoga questioned in such circumstances is postural yoga which is based on a sequence of postures synchronized through breathing exercises. While there are yoga teachers who focus on the spiritual features of yoga, Wendy Cadge and Courtney Bender interviewed some instructors who admitted that they have to be careful where they introduce the spiritual aspects of yoga (48).

Faced with the reality that most yoga students are more interested in the physical and psychological benefits of yoga, the spiritual side practice is becoming less traditional as it spreads in the West. The ideal of yoga as a spiritual practice in the West, therefore, is not that it enables people to achieve and maintain a higher level of connectivity to the divine, but because there is a possibility that many people will embrace it for its high level of applicability. Schutz notes that Western domination placed yoga gurus in a double blind since they were not free to adopt the devotional life of their ancestors and stay relevant in a world that demanded they change for the sake of modernization (41).

This is where the malleability of yoga became handy, that when it was supposed to be an alternative path to physical wellbeing, it was possible to find a place for yoga in the progressive West. At the same time, there are people who desire to maintain the original nature of yoga as it was founded and passed down by its earliest gurus because it is a nod to Buddhist devotees who hoped to find a clear path to the divine. Losing this important connection and knowledge would mean that future generations will not be able to experience the enlightenment and transformation that can be achieved through authentic yoga practice. Therefore, they have grown to treat it as the real thing when what they have acquired is the physical practice without the spiritual connection that ought to come with it.

In conclusion, colonization and globalization, which increased the amount of contact between the East and the West, exposed the West to Eastern religious practices like yoga, which they have misappropriated to meet certain expectations. The classical Patanjali yoga that was meant to create personal enlightenment and a connection to the divine has been abandoned for a shallow-focused practice, the results of which can be witnessed physically. True devotees of yoga are individuals dedicated to prayer, good works, and spiritual freedom; states that can only be attained over time with absolute commitment. However, the demands of the modern world which gives less credence to the spiritual and more to what is visible forced yoga teachers to slowly focus on postural yoga rather than spiritual enlightenment.